Souvenir
by Starlightlovesya123
Summary: It's in the little signs about the house. They're what make it so hard to live without him, to know that he's out there but that he's changed. So what else is there to do, besides follow the clues, until Artemis can find him again?


Cooking dinner had never been easy, and combining ingredients was even harder. There had to be a precise way the components worked together. A little of this sauce here, a little of that herb there. They all had to work together. And perhaps that was the real problem, if the woman in the kitchen was being honest with herself. Making things "work together" had never been Artemis' strong suit.

She stood in the dimly lit room, with its three wooden cabinets, holding a small bundle of green in her right hand. She watched it dismally, as if it might just up and walk away at any moment, like the rest of the things in her life. She hated cilantro.

Maybe it was the smell. Cilantro had this weird, sharp, almost sour smell to it that always made Artemis wrinkle her nose and turn away. Herbs were supposed to be soft and spicy-smelling, not like they'd been left out on the counter for too long, so that they obtained the pleasant aroma of curdled milk mixed with lettuce.

Maybe it was because it reminded her of home, of the times she and her parents used to travel to China and taste all that wonderful Asian cuisine. It reminded her of a time when things were easier, and she hated dwelling in a past that was too far gone to retrieve.

Maybe it was the look. The leaves were too _green. _Too emerald and perfect, and small and shapely and lovely. Too maddeningly pretty, too tauntingly simple.

But honestly? The real reason?

The real reason was because it reminded her of Wally. Maybe it was the smell, maybe it was the look, maybe it was the green, but it didn't matter because it reminded her of _Wally_.

Wally, who had enchanted her throughout her teenage years, in spite of her obvious aversion to red-headed juveniles with too many bad quips. Wally, who had made her feel normal, like she had a choice in the matter of her life. Wally, who had a regular, loving family of caring individuals, none of which had grown up as criminals or were handicapped because of their actions. Wally, who she had hated but loved, because, God, she had always just been so jealous.

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look at the bright green herb, refusing to think about him, refusing to think about what happened three days ago. She hated it, all of it. But, as it always was, as soon as she refused it, the urge just grew stronger, pushed harder to break the wall.

She leaned over the cutting board, where she'd been trying to make dinner for the past half hour, and started crying.

Artemis didn't cry; that was what happened when you were weak, insecure, and afraid. Artemis wasn't any of those things. And, yet, here she was.

"Mom?"

She whipped her head up, wiping the tears away from her eyes as fast as she could. She looked over to the right side of the room, where the small voice had come from.

There was a doorway between the kitchen and the living room, drawn in a wide, light-blue arch. A couple of weeks ago, Wally had tripped over the jagged floorboard beneath this arch, splitting his chin on the tile and cursing loudly. And now? Now, Artemis' nine-year-old daughter was standing there, with her arms joined behind her back. Her long blonde braid trailed down over her shoulder and the tip tickled her stomach. Her eyes were a brilliant, emerald, cilantro green.

"Mom, why are you crying?"

A bright, cilantro green that was exactly like her father's.

"Di, go back to playing. I'm fine," Artemis told her, turning back to the cutting board. She looked at the tear drops that had fallen onto the leaves and had to hide her disgust. Still, it bubbled like acid in the pit of her stomach, uncontrollable and painful.

Diana remained standing in the doorway, chewing on her lower lip. She watched Artemis try to cut the cilantro without saying a word. She watched the intricate pattern the knife made, slowly slicing the leaves into a green pulp. After perhaps five minutes of this silent observation, she spoke again.

"Mom, please stop lying to us."

The knife slowly pulled to a stop in its cutting motion, like a conveyer belt that had been turned off and was shutting down.

Artemis closed her eyes.

What was it about children that made them so incredibly perceptive of the world around them? What was it about their little eyes and hands that could reach out and see anything, find anything and know exactly what is was, how it felt, what was happening? It didn't matter if they had to make up a few things along the way. Because, deep down, somehow, they just _knew._

The woman with her hair still long and the color of wheat, but with her eyes grown tired, turned to face her daughter yet again.

Diana, the other version of the name "Artemis." And a tribute to the fallen warrior that had been Wonder Woman, who had taught the broken Justice League to stay strong when all seemed hopeless. The lesson had been taught well, Artemis knew. She'd been there for it.

But it seemed the League had forgotten it, had thrown it up on the shelves like an old History book, letting it gather dust and yellow with age. The JLA was crumbling, falling to pieces. Batman had abandoned it three years ago, resorting to Gotham alone. They'd lost Superboy, to time, to violence, to nothing, because it shouldn't have happened. M'gann hadn't been the same since. And Diana, Wonder Woman, her body bleeding out onto the ground? That was the just the final shove.

"I'm not lying to you, Di. I'm okay. Just tired," Artemis told her, walking to the little girl and kneeling down to her height.

"No, you're not." The emerald eyes flashed as they stared into their mother's. "Something's wrong. I know it, and Will knows it too."

Artemis sighed. "Where is Will?"

"In his room. He's packing." Di put her hands in her pockets, like a lawyer who had stated his point and was now done with the matter.

"Packing? Honey, he's six-years-old. Where does he think he's going?"

The little girl shrugged, but Artemis knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. Her daughter knew, she just wasn't telling. She could see it in the flicker of her eyes, in the slight quiver of her lower lip. Artemis had been the same way, when she'd been that young, that innocent.

"Come on," she said, and gently placed her hand on her daughter's shoulder, leading her towards the bedroom Di and Will shared.

Artemis slowly opened the door, creaking on its hinges, revealing the boy in the middle of the room. William West was sitting cross-legged on the sapphire carpet, with an arrangement of items around him, items that he was stuffing into a tiny Superman backpack. Artemis saw his Game Boy, a pair of action figures, a photograph of him and Wally, his toy cell phone, and a single Quaker Oats granola bar in the midst. When she opened the door, he turned to look at her, first nervously, then accusingly.

Her heart tightened as she saw that last look. How many times had she seen it before, in the eyes of someone else? In the eyes of her father, Will's own grandfather? How many times had she endured its piercing gaze, its weighty disappointment? Too many. Far too many.

"Will, what are you doing?" she asked him wearily, as he lifted himself to his feet.

"I'm going to find Daddy," he stated, as if this was a completely decided fact. He stood there with his chest puffed up, his strawberry-blonde hair messy on his scalp, his blue-gray eyes fierce and determined.

God, there were some days Artemis truly thought Will _was _Wally.

"Dash, Daddy's working, okay?" she told him, bending over and beginning to gather the various toys he'd strewn about the room. She silently hoped calling him "Dash" might soften things up a bit. Ever since Will had seen _The Incredibles, _"Dash" had been his new favorite nickname.

"No. Daddy comes home and tucks me in when he works. Daddy's not working." Will's lips thinned to a scar on his face, utterly set in what they believed.

Which made perfect sense to Artemis. What they believed was true. Wally wasn't working. Of course, he wasn't. He would have called, would have shot by, would have left her a message, would have given Diana a flower and Will a hug, and Artemis a sloppy kiss on the cheek that she would have swatted away. He wasn't working, and everyone knew it like they knew the sun would rise the next day.

"I'm going to find him," Will continued, placing his hands on top of hers and reclaiming the toys she had picked up. He let them fall into his backpack, then wandered over to his closet, pulling down a single t-shirt. On it, of course, was the symbol of the Flash.

"Will, you're not going to find him," Diana interjected. "You don't even know where to look!"

"Daddy likes pizza," was Will's only reply as he stuffed the t-shirt into the pocket of the backpack.

"So you're gonna try Pizza Hut?" Diana asked, crossing her arms. "That's a stupid idea! It doesn't take Dad three days to get pizza! He's the Flash!"

"It's not a stupid idea!" Will shouted back, whirling on his sister, tears wavering in his eyes. He turned to Artemis, a single drop slipping down his cheek. "Mommy, please! Where is Daddy?"

For a moment, she just stared back at him. What was she supposed to tell her six-year-old son? The truth? That was impossible. "Daddy's in jail, sweetheart. But he's doing just fine, I promise, and we can go visit him in his containment center with a thousand different securities whenever you feel like it!"

What had happened? Artemis wondered this, as she witnessed her family slowly falling apart by Wally's absence. She'd been there, right there beside the Flash, preparing another arrow to sling into the midst of the battle.

They'd been fighting something other-worldly, strange creatures with markings on their arms and chests, ones that seemed to appear from nowhere.

Wally, the ever-immaculate nerd, had joked that they had "stepped out of _World of Warcraft _or something."

She'd rolled her eyes but smiled, putting her back to his, razor-kicking another of the violent beasts, happy to feel alive again, well again, powerful again. It hadn't seemed to be a big deal. They'd had a long day, these creatures were just another ditch to be filled up, a quickie job, a patch-up.

And then some sort of hole had ripped in the very air between them, something that had crackled and gnawed at the atmosphere, creating a humming that had vibrated Artemis' very molecules and rung through her entire body. She'd dropped her bow, tripping onto the ground, hands to her ears.

She'd watched something—she still didn't know what, but it was dark and shifty and brilliantly overwhelming in its grievous destruction—fly out of the air, out of the hole that wasn't a hole. She'd watched it strike the alarmed, tensed body of Wally, only a few feet away from her. She'd watched it pierce through his heart, disappearing into his chest. She'd watched his pupils contract into tiny little slivers, as Pride itself overcame him, causing him to lose all control. His face slack, his arms slack, his knees giving in and causing him to tumble over. His eyes alive and on fire, as if they were slowly being tortured.

She didn't remember much after that, only watching as Wally—except he _wasn't _Wally, Artemis knew that for sure—slowly rose up onto his feet again, then dove towards her.

Then it was just black. Simple, easy, horrible black.

Some noises were thrown into the memory, shouts and splashes and screams, the sounds of pain and determination and power. The sounds of the remaining Justice League members, who had come to her aid.

She'd woken up in the hospital, generally uninjured besides a few scrapes and bruises and a minor concussion. Dinah Lance, Black Canary, her old mentor, had been sitting at her bedside with tears in her eyes. She'd explained everything. Wally was locked up, contained at the Watchtower. They didn't know what had happened, where his mind had gone, or when it would come back. _If _it would at all.

"_He hasn't said a word. Just…sits there and stares at us, like he hates us all. Like a sociopath," _Dinah had said quietly, her eyes downcast.

Artemis had tried to visit him, had shoved herself against the elders, but no one would let her go anywhere near him. They didn't want him to attack her again. They were afraid she's provoke him.

They wouldn't let his own wife see her husband.

And it was killing her.

This wasn't supposed to happen to Wally. Wally was the cheerful, optimistic one, with the cocky grin and the unbalanced appetite and the sloppy, wet kisses on the mouth, nose, or lips. It was Artemis who should have been locked in that center. She was the one with the criminal background, the dark eyes, the dark heart, the frightened soul that she refused to show.

And here was her son, asking her the question she couldn't answer. _Where in the World is Wally West?_

"I don't know," Artemis whispered, and, really, she was telling the truth. She had no idea where Wally was, because that man in the containment center, the one with the tiny pupils and the cruel stare, was most definitely _not _her husband.

Silence. Will looked defeated.

Three minutes of quiet passed, before any of them were brave enough to try again.

"Should we look for him?" Diana asked quietly.

Artemis bit down hard on her tongue, her throat clenching as she struggled to find words. Since when was it so hard to lie, to come up with some story, no matter how terrible, that she could use as a scapegoat? Was it because they were her children? Was it because she truly didn't know the answer?

It was probably both.

"What do you _want_ to do?" she asked both of them, Will and Diana, as they stood there with their young lips frowning.

"Find Daddy," Will replied, but there was less ferocity in his voice, and instead a sort of desperate sadness. The tears were tumbling down his cheeks now, one after another. He was so afraid, and Artemis blamed herself for it. Of course it was her fault. She'd seen Sportsmaster, her father, the day that Wally was taken. They'd gone on a walk, pretending to be normal but talking about everything they'd missed, everything that mattered.

He'd told her that marrying Wally was a wrong decision. She'd told him she didn't care. She'd fallen in love, same as he'd fallen in love with her mother.

He'd told her that it would only tear her apart. Everything she'd ever worked for would come undone. She'd told him she could handle herself, could make her own decisions.

He'd left.

Sportsmaster was somehow behind this, and Artemis knew it. She'd seen it in his light brown eyes that he was planning something, no matter how much it would hurt his daughter.

_You'll thank me in the end, Artemis._

No. No, she would never thank Lawrence Crock for this.

"Okay," she told her children, standing up from where she had been sitting on Will's bed. "Okay, let's go find Daddy."

She took her children by the hands, even Diana, who had recently tried going through an independent stage and didn't like being led around. But even she held tightly to her mother's fingers, as they walked back into the kitchen and started packing.

She would take them around the country for a few days, Artemis decided. She'd let them search, let them blow off their steam. It was better than just sitting here and waiting. They'd drive around the East Coast, checking in pizza shops and WalMarts that Will would insist on visiting. Artemis would call the Watchtower every day, asking for news. And if nothing came, she would go. She would go visit the creature Wally had become, and she'd take the kids with her.

As Diana and Will started making peanut butter sandwiches ("And baloney sandwiches for Daddy," Will added), Artemis flicked on the switch to the basement and descended the stairs. She would bring her old bow, pack it in the trunk, in case she needed it for whatever reason. She didn't like fighting crime with the kids around; it was too risky.

She walked into Wally's workroom, a makeshift chemistry station and tool bench, with various tubes and bottles and wrenches and nails lying across its dusty surface. She sighed, refusing to look too far, refusing to acknowledge the smell of him here, the signs that screamed _Wally was here, Wally was here. _The grape soda stain on the rug, thrown against the wall. The shattered glass on the floor, that he'd swept up but hadn't thrown away. The empty bag of potato chips lying next to a birdhouse he had been building for Di.

Nothing was the same without him here. And yet he was everywhere.

Artemis started skimming the shelves for the box labeled "YJ Stuff", a box she rarely took down but was there nonetheless. Her old bow would be in there, probably half-broken, more than a little dirty, and in need of a good string-tightening.

She finally located the faded Sharpie letters, scribbled on the cardboard, and stood up on her tip-toes to reach it.

It was then that she saw a small flash of light out of the corner of her eye. She paused, sinking back down onto her heels, and turned her head to the left.

At first, she didn't understand what it was. A glass box, yes, she gathered that, but it had something in it.

She stepped closer to it, where it was sitting on a shelf, all polished and new. It stuck out like a sore thumb, a lovely piece of shining material in the middle of Wally's crowded workspace. When she finally was close enough, when she finally realized what it was, she couldn't help the hand that shot up to cover her mouth.

No. That thing had been gone for years. How could it be here?

It was the arrow. The one she'd used to save Wally all those years ago, in the battle against Amazo. Back when Young Justice was a new idea, a new concept, a thriving beacon yet to be fully discovered. Here it was, framed in a beautiful glass box, cleaned to the point that she could see the tip sparkle. Still sharp, from the look of it.

And written on a plaque underneath the arrow were five simple sentences, chiseled in a golden cursive script.

"Dick was right. You did save my butt that day, and a whole lot of times after that. So here's to 10 years of having my butt saved by my beautiful wife. Happy Anniversary, Artemis. I love you."

She'd forgotten. Forgotten about the anniversary, the anniversary that was _today, _for God's sake. Forgotten about the arrow, about the saving, about everything.

The tears fell down her face again, unable to stop, as her lips tensed against the palm of her hand.

Oh, _Wally._ Oh, God.

"Mommy?"

Will was standing in the doorway this time, holding onto his Superman backpack, his eyes curious and worried, as he saw the drops on his mother's cheeks.

She gently picked up the lovely glass box, and showed it to her son, smiling weakly.

"Your first clue, Will. Let's go find your father."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_So it's not my favorite WallArt fiction that I've written (not by far XD), but here it is. _

_Anyway, this started out as a humor fiction, believe it or not, but I didn't like where it was going. So I rewound, started up again, and ended up with this little gig. I could have made it so much longer, but I figured it was already pretty long for a one-shot and I didn't want to bore people too much with the details. _

_Please, please leave a review! I would love any and all feedback. Thank you. :)_

_Oh, and the "Artemis hated cilantro" idea came from a video I watched. It's "Things Artemis Hates" on Youtube. Yeah, kinda hard to believe it inspired this fiction, huh? XD_


End file.
